B-Skool inturrbhoo for Dummies

A member of the interview panel at a 'leading' B-School from Mumbai explains what he looked for in the candidates. Good reading for both CAT aspirants and the already-made-it-to-B-School junta who will appear for placements etc. some time later.Two young `techies' working in well known IT services firms left the best impressions when it came to clarity of purpose. A young boy, an engineer from a good university, said he was writing code for a large insurance project that was underway in the US. While that was okay for now, he was really keen to understand the insurance business itself and get a feel of his project's role in it. Then on, perhaps drive the project the way he saw it.All this was the project manager's domain, and these chaps, according to him, were all MBAs. Having worked for a year and a half in his present role, he had a distinct feeling that this is what he would keep doing were he not to get out and `add value' to himself, preferably in the form of a MBA degree.

The other, young girl, who had an unusually incisive understanding of her company, the project and her role in the grand scheme had a similar tale to narrate. Being an engineer, she was on a good starting wicket, but the future did not look all that bright, unless she moved on to a managerial position quickly. “I am a computer engineer but I don’t understand a balance sheet,” she summed up.

Students who’ve worked with BPOs are pretty much up there in terms of perspective*, better still, I learnt that many of them self-fund their courses nowadays. Most importantly, they come with high energy, a customer service orientation and often, the exposure to world class systems and processes*. B-Schools, particularly beyond the IIMs, could thus be positively inclined towards such students. So, a decent BPO stint beforeheading to a B School may not be a bad idea.*emphasis added.

Yipppeee.Now I hope the HR people from the cos. who will come to recruit at IIMK next year read this and look at BPO guys with respect and maybe give them a slightly higher billing than they deserve ;-)